


Consuming Rust

by HallowedJack



Category: Lost In Vivo (2018), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Silent Hill (Video Game Series)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Horror, Bottom Steve Rogers, Claustrophobia, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Monsters, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Survival Horror, Symbolism, Top Bucky Barnes, Trauma, Underground, shrinky clinks
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-03
Updated: 2019-01-03
Packaged: 2019-10-03 19:44:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17290214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HallowedJack/pseuds/HallowedJack
Summary: An evil spreads underground, corrupting and shifting with each passing day. Steve stumbles right into the heart of it, and meets a grizzled veteran named Bucky Barnes among the way. It’s like the underground is alive, and it wants them dead.





	Consuming Rust

Steve Rogers shook with fear as he scurried down the alleyway. His pursuers were fresh on his tail, and were unrelenting. He didn’t even know what they wanted, or what they were after. He had simply been walking home, when he saw two hooded figures trailing behind him. Normal, he had thought. So he took four left turns to be sure. They still followed.

 

Panting now from exhaustion as he slipped a corner, he quickly found himself sheltered underneath an overpass. The grimy walls were barely illuminated by a flickering fluorescent light. Torn posters scattered the surroundings.

 

He had to think fast. Steve couldn’t continue this pace, his heart was fluttering at an off-rhythm beat. Palpitations were never a good sign, hiding was the only other option.

 

Well, there was another. But Steve really couldn’t part without his phone and the measly money in his pockets. Sure his life was worth more, but he needed his phone for internet, which he used to fill commisions. Rent was due soon. And Steve wasn’t one-hundred percent certain they wanted his money anyway. It could have been a trick of the eye, but Steve could have sworn he saw the faintest glint of metal upon looking over his shoulder.

 

Definitely time to hide. Steve rounded another corner.

 

To his left, a small maintenance door, painted in a peeling dark green. The handle was rough and cold, but with a quick squeeze, he found the door unlocked. Electricity panels adorned the concrete walls, grey stone stained brown with something Steve didn’t ponder. Empty soda cans clattered as he slipped inside, he cursed the noise.

 

Steve fumbled to find a lock for the door. His search came up empty. The door did not have a lock, probably why it was unlocked in the first place.

 

He was fucked. Utterly fucked because his assailants would definitely check in the only room he could have entered. Some maintenance room. A dead end. He was done for. And he didn’t want to figure out what the thugs wanted. Another scan of the room produced no hiding places. No furniture to blend in with, nothing to cover himself with besides a few Soda cans. There was a vent lazily blowing hot steamy air, some kind of exhaust.

 

He could hide to the left of the door so that when it opened he’d be behind it. No, that wouldn’t work, that was something children did.

 

A bead of sweat rolled down his brow. It really was humid in the small cramped concrete room. He probably shouldn’t even be in here. Authorized personal only for sure.

 

His sweat. The vent!

 

It wasn’t too high, about up to his admittedly low shoulders. Steve grabbed the metal grating, pulling it towards him. It rattled significantly as his fingers shook. They’d be here any second. His eyes flicked to the source of the rattling, an almost out screw. Hanging on by a thread. It was easily removed.It must have been a lynchpin, as the grate fell to the floor with an obnoxious clatter.

 

It was the one privilege of being skinny. He could fit into small spaces. He had never thought it useful until now, when his narrow shoulders squeezed into the metallic and cramped duct. It was big enough for him to maneuver around, widening out after the entrance. Definitely some kind of exhaust vent. It was dark too, barely able to see inches past the murky soup of black.

 

Steve had a pen-light in his pocket, but he wouldn’t turn it on. He needed to hide in the darkness.

 

The whole situation was ludicrous, being chased into a maintenance room and hiding in a vent. It was honestly beyond belief that this was happening. He had been minding his own business not two hours before.

 

When the footsteps approached, he ducked further into the vent. There was something wrong though, he didn’t notice it at first. Seconds grew into moments as he waiting for the door to burst open. But those footsteps were slow, staggered, lumbering almost. That’s what was wrong.

 

The door creeped open, a marred fleshy hand slid through the crack before the door slowly opened. It staggered through the entrance, and Steve wished it had been the thugs. It was eyeless, it’s facial features completely smooth save for jagged teeth puncturing it’s skin where it’s mouth should have been. And that was enough for Steve to whimper and hold his hand over his mouth. He couldn’t let that thing hear him.

 

It had to be some sick joke, this was definitely a tv program, why else would this door be open, and why else would the vent have been coincidentally loosened? That would explain the abomination before him, silicon and makeup. Special effects, that’s all.

 

But he didn’t trust his judgement, because he had to be dreaming. This was just a nightmare. But that thing got closer, and Steve could peek out trough the darkness that it looked like its skin was reversed, blood red and throbbing almost.

 

Steve wanted to cry. Panic coursed through him. It felt like the vent walls were closing in. He scurried back deeper away from the monster, it had to know he was here. His movements were panicked, but slow enough to be muffled. Surely the clattering in the vents would echo, but hopefully the thing just believed it to be the standard industrial noises of an alleyway.

 

He wouldn’t chance it though, feeling his way blindly around in the dark as he crawled to what appeared to be a corner in the vents. He could hide there, yes. Safe and sound. And he teared up, because none of this should be happening. He wasn’t going crazy, that thing was out of sight now though so he couldn’t dwell on that. He was in the dark, completely. The only taste of light bending the corner of the vent. Couldn’t use his pen light though, not until he was sure.

 

Waiting in the dark felt like eons. He half expected the creature to come in after him, chase him down a vent-way like some horror movie. But it didn’t, Steve heard the fading footsteps and creak of a door that was just a bit too familiar. It was gone.

 

Steve cried silently with relief, not wanting the thing to come back after all. Fishing around awkwardly in his pockets, his fingers came to rest upon the pen. The one that had a lens at the end for a flashlight. Not as good as the real thing but it would have to do for now.

 

The beam of light was half a meter across, but that was enough for dread to fill his system at what he saw. His knees trembled against the warm metal, his lip quivered. No, this couldn’t be happening, this wasn’t true. It wasn’t possible. Around the corner was bricked off, where it had once been the entrance to the vent system, his exit. Steve reached out and felt the cool brick. His stomach sank when he actually felt it. The wall was real. No way out. It was just not there anymore. And Steve didn’t know what to do, for the second time in his life, he had a panic attack. No way out.

**Author's Note:**

> Just wanted to let my readers know that this chapter length is not usual, and that it’s only so that you guys get a taste before I release beefier chapters.


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